After a year marked by emotional and spiritual challenges, including the profound loss of my father, I found that a single word could serve as a guiding light for healing and transformation: “purposeful.” Join me, Sylvia Worsham, as I reflect on 2024’s trials and share the revelations that directed me toward embracing purpose over material gains. By exploring how faith can triumph over fear and grief, I invite you to consider the strength found in meaningful connections, particularly in the context of the holiday season. Together, we’ll journey through stories of empowerment and divine purpose, discovering how these experiences illuminated the path to true fulfillment and inner strength.
As we explore the empowering theme of divine purpose, I’ll recount an inspiring tale of coaching a young man to success in the medical field, an experience that reaffirmed my calling to uplift others. With gratitude from influential friends fueling my resolve, I discuss how choosing a guiding word can align with our life journeys and nurture personal growth. Encouraging you to trust in God’s timing, this episode is a heartfelt invitation to discover your divine purpose and empower those around you, urging a shift from material accumulation to seeking deeper meaning in our life’s adventures.
Transcript:
Speaker 1:
If you’ve ever struggled with fear, doubt or worry and wondering what your true purpose was all about, then this podcast is for you. In this show, your host, sylvia Worsham, will interview elite experts and ordinary people that have created extraordinary lives. So here’s your host, sylvia Worsham.
Speaker 2:
Hey, lightbringers, it’s Sylvia Worsham. Welcome to Release Reveal Purpose. In this episode we’re going to be talking about the word for the year and why it’s important to pick something to gear our minds towards and our hearts towards for 2025. Happy new year to my community who is listening out there. Merry christmas to y’all, and I’m sorry for the small hiatus, small self-care pause. I needed the pause.
Speaker 2:
It’d been a very hard 2024 for me emotionally, spiritually, physically, mentally. It it really drained me at the end and I found myself really just needing a break. And so I know some of you depend on some of these podcasts, episodes, to kind of keep you going, but realize that as coaches is out there we also need a break to be able to rejuvenate our soul, to be able to reconnect with our hearts and our minds and our spirits throughout the holiday season. And this season was obviously bittersweet for me. It’s my first Christmas without my father and Christmas is a very important time in my family without my father, and Christmas is a very important time in my family as Mexican, as Catholics, we it means a great deal for us to celebrate the birth of Christ and I, you know, since becoming a non-denominational Christian, it’s a. It’s even more of a special time for me. It just it holds a very different meaning for me. It’s even more of a special time for me. It just holds a very different meaning for me, and this year I, at the end, I was just kind of done with 2024.
Speaker 2:
It had been a year of a tremendous amount of realization, a tremendous amount of realization. One first thing that happened to me was I realized, when I reflected on 2024, that one of my greatest fears had come to pass and it had not taken me down. I was not drowned in my grief. When I lost my father, and that was one of the biggest fears I faced in 2024 was the death of a loved one and the death of a parent, which was, for me, has always been something that has scared me immensely, and I really thought my grief was going to be unbearable. And what I found out when I reflected at the end of 2024 was it didn’t.
Speaker 2:
And so fear really doesn’t have the same strong hold over me that it has had in the past, because I’ve lived to see the other side of fear and the meaning of faith over fear is very pronounced in my soul right now, because faith truly conquered my fear. It held me together during the biggest storm of my life to date. During the biggest storm of my life to date and having lived through it, it reminded me, and having hoped, that there’s something on the other side of that fear and it changed everything for me, truthfully, and that journey that I was on, and at the end of it and at the end of it, what I realized was I want more out of my life than the material things that I’ve been chasing all these years. The significance that I’ve chased for so long just doesn’t hold the same meaning anymore. I don’t need to achieve anymore. I’ve done plenty of achieving and it hasn’t given me what I wanted. It has affirmed in me my own strength, my own perseverance. It has affirmed in me that if I put my mind to anything, I can conquer anything, I can do anything, and that I’m not alone in my journey. I don’t have to do this alone. I have God by my side. And, in fact, right now, you know the footprints in the sand. Sometimes you see two pairs of footprints or sometimes you see one pair. Right now I’m seeing one pair and I know he’s carrying me, because I was exhausted at the end of the year. I couldn’t even. I had given it my all for everything. I couldn’t even. I had given it my all for everything. I had prepared my soul for the greatest grief and storm of my life my father’s death and my beloved aunt’s death as well, which came and went. And then another big hit occurred in June, and then my book released and all the work that went into it and all the passion and all the hours and hours of editing all came to fruition into a best-selling book in four categories a day at release. So much happened in 2020.
Speaker 2:
For me, my marriage had some significant downs in it and some significant ups as well, because in the big things, my husband came through beautifully for me and I felt closer to him than ever. And even in our greatest storms, I have felt closer to him now than I did when I first married him. In our greatest storms, I have felt closer to him now than I did when I first married him. But, truth be told, I was tired, I was exhausted, and when you’re exhausted, you can’t give your community what you want to give them, and that’s why I took a two-week hiatus from talking to you guys and sharing my thoughts and sharing my growth and sharing the growth that I’ve seen others experience. And so the words for this year for me and it found me very easily was purposeful.
Speaker 2:
I remember just sitting in my living room next to my Christmas tree and talking to God over coffee and I was looking at all the gifts my daughter had gotten over the Christmas break and also over her birthday, because her birthday is in December and the first thought that came to my mind is what is the purpose of all these things that we have?
Speaker 2:
Do they serve a purpose? Is my daughter learning or seeing life differently by getting all these things? And the truth is, people are not. It’s just an accumulation of things, checking off of boxes, if you will, getting gifts, but never really playing with them. So what’s the purpose of these gifts? And so it led me on that journey of like really looking at my life and saying what is the purpose of what you’re doing today? Is your purpose right now? Is this for a season or is this your divine purpose? And I asked God. I said I need you to make it very clear to me what you need me to do this year. You’re very clear with the book I followed through on that I was obedient in that you were very through in my marriage.
Speaker 2:
I followed through on that. I need you to be crystal clear for 2025. And so far, that word has impacted not just my mindset or my goal setting, but my overall being, even in the way I’m speaking, I’m being purposeful and I ask myself if what I’m about to tell my husband is it useful in any way, or does it just take up space, like these gifts? They’re just taking up space. Are we doing anything? Is it bringing any joy to us whatsoever? And when I would answer no, then I would just not say the thing that popped into my head which is very hard for me to do, by the way, because I have ADHD and so thoughts pop into my head constantly and it takes an enormous amount of discipline for me to stop it from coming out of my mouth. So I find myself even slowing down before I even speak and being very mindful and purposeful in the words I’m choosing to speak. I find it interesting that this is my word for the year. It has impacted my relationship with my children, with my husband, and I’m only on the 8th day of doing this word, but it just found me so easily because it’s been on my heart for a while, because when you lose a parent, it puts everything in perspective for you. Things slow down, things that were once so important to you just aren’t anymore. You you think more about the present moment and you are more grateful for what you currently have in terms of your health, in terms of the joy, even if they’re small moments of joy. It has made me better to slow down, to truly tune inwards and ask God to help me.
Speaker 2:
See, I all last year, as was always my I wouldn’t say my personality, but just my pattern I’ve been in control. My father died. I’m the one that did the eulogy. I’m the one that did the obituary. I’m the one that did all the arrangements. Yes, control. I’m the one that read all the books for my marriage. I’m the one that has been like seeking all the answers when the answer is inside of me. As human beings, we tend to want to control our circumstances because we feel so out of control and grief certainly puts you in that path than that. I had no control. My father was dying, he died. It didn’t crush me. I relied on my faith. God came through for me in a very powerful way and at the end of 2024,. I just sat there, exhausted, and I said it’s your turn.
Speaker 2:
I want you to take the reins, totally Take the reins. I want you to show me what it is that you need me to do, and I will do it. I will be obedient, I’ll do my part. I’ll be obedient, I’ll take the reins. But you got to show me what it is that you want me to do. And just when I started to lose hope hey, you know, sometimes you don’t get the answers that you’re looking for right away, and so you just start to doubt yourself.
Speaker 2:
I got this text yesterday from a young man I met last March. Last March, my father was in ICU and I was flying back and forth from Austin to South Texas to visit him, and on my flight back to Austin one afternoon, I was sitting at the front of the plane and walked this young African-American boy young man I call him boy because I’m 50 and he’s in the prime of his life right and he was traveling with his baseball team. They had just played in the Rio Grande Valley and I think he was heading back to, like, the north somewhere. But he’s from Texas and there was a middle seat and he, for whatever reason, decided to sit right next to me and, as usual, we struck up a very easy conversation and it turns out he wanted to work in medical devices and I had worked medical devices when I first moved to Austin and I had worked for Pfizer, as you guys know, for many years, and Roche for that for Pfizer, as you guys know, for many years, and rose for that, so been in the medical sales arena for a long time and had a lot of experience with it. So I just started to guide them and I was like, hey, you need to have a LinkedIn profile and have you done that? Yeah, yeah, I have one. I go well, let me take a look at it, I can help you with it.
Speaker 2:
I took taking courses on this and I just felt compelled to help this young man. It was just something I felt I needed to do and I did it and I said I’d like to help you. Who are you wanting to interview with? He goes I’m interviewing, or I’m looking at Stryker, and I had a good buddy of mine, a former client of mine, that I reached out to and I said hey, jordan, do you mind talking to this young man?
Speaker 2:
Um, and he immediately agreed he’s a great guy, jordan Costello and I I shared with him some of the knowledge I had gained because I’d been an integral part of the interview and hiring process for reps in my area. I’d always been brought into those interviews for Pfizer because I was a top performer and they wanted my opinion on it, and so I learned a lot just from watching managers do the interviews. And so I coached this kid and that was March of last year and the text came through yesterday that he had gotten a job in surgery for Covenant Medical Center in Lubbock that was going to allow him the the free time that he needed and wanted and more pay, but that he had been in the medical field because of me and he wanted to thank me, wanted to touch base with me, and I just it floored me because here I was doubting you know, like am I doing the thing that I’m meant to do Like my divine purpose?
Speaker 2:
Am I serving God with my gifts in the way that he needs me to do? And when I got that text, the confirmation from the Holy Spirit was there. I knew I was on the right path, path to be told by this, this complete stranger to me, that that, that snowball, that hey guys, I’m recording something, but that it just affirmed to me that I was on the right path for what I was doing and the timing of it was so, holy Spirit, because I had just had doubts, like not like a week ago, and the tagline that I had created long ago in my branding was empowering one life, one life at a time, or something like that. Empowering a life at a time. And here I was. I had empowered this young man to step into a role that he was doubting himself in, but I had empowered him to just look into and he got a job and he’s successful and he’s happy and he’s living his best life. And I was also tagged by another friend of mine who is a major player politically here in Texas, indiana, and she had thanked me for the role I had played in her success and her being nominated for this major award, and it just affirmed to me over and over and over again that I am empowering people to step into their divine purpose daily, whether I realize it or not, whether I’m getting paid for that or not.
Speaker 2:
So purposeful is my word for the year, and I want you to think about what your word is for the year and what it means for your journey and where you are in your journey, because that is so important. We each journey through different times in our lives for a purpose that only God knows in that moment. We don’t realize it until years later, sometimes months later, when we turn around and reflect on how that storm shaped us and formed us, and there’s just no way of knowing in the moment, because this is all in God’s timing, this is all for his purpose and his will, all for his purpose and his will. And so today I just want you to sit back and reflect. What is my word? Why am I choosing this word? What does it mean to me and what does it mean to the journey I’m currently on? I’m Sylvia Worsham. Thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of my word for the year. Have a wonderful week. Stay safe. Happy new year. See you all next week.
Speaker 1:
Bye now, so that’s it for today’s episode of Release Doubt Reveal Purpose. Head on over to iTunes or wherever you listen and subscribe to the show. One lucky listener every single week who posts a review on iTunes will win a chance in the grand prize drawing to win a $25,000 private VIP day with Sylvia Worsham herself. Be sure to head on over to https://releasedoubtrevealpurpose.com and pick up a free copy of Sylvia’s gift and join us on the next episode.